Exposure Therapy
by theshieldteam
Summary: Static Quake AU Prompt: Lincoln's somewhat of a scaredy-cat, but Daisy's determined to fix that.
1. Chapter 1

Daisy popped a french fry in her mouth and glanced over at Lincoln. He had a pillow clenched in his hands, about to raise it at the slightest moment.

"You sure you wanna keep watching this? We're only a half hour in and you look like you're about to bolt out of the window."

"I'm fine." Lincoln said sharply. Daisy raised her eyebrows and shrugged.

"Mmkay," she ate another french fry.

A minute later, he was practically in her lap. His hands were shaking and she could hear his breathing become faster and shallower each breath. He was so close she could almost feel his pulse pounding throughout his body into hers.

Not that she minded.

Daisy felt a blush creep onto her cheeks as Lincoln pressed closer to her.

"Okay, for the love of _GOD,_ will you please just let me turn off the movie?" Daisy exclaimed, attempting to keep her face cool and miserably failing. Lincoln didn't seem to notice anything off, though, being paralyzed with fear and all.

"Fine!" he hollered, whipping the pillow up to his face as the murderer guy came on screen. They were watching a 'classic' (according to their streaming service), "Jeepers Creepers" _._

"Lincoln, –"

"– Mm defitely un hurred pecent rkay!"

At least, that's what Daisy heard through the pillow pressed against his face. She sighed and flipped off the TV.

"Honestly, it's not even one of the more scary ones."

Lincoln vacated his pillow hiding space with wide eyes.

"I'm having a hard time imagining anything scarier than that." Daisy rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"There's not even any damn _ghosts_ in this movie. Ghosts are some scary shit, okay? This is just straight up murderer guy. There's a little alien shit goin on, but that's it. If you have a hard time thinking past the whole serial killer trope, I suggest you watch Paranormal Activity. That's some scary ghost-y shit. Man, it'll freak you the hell out." Daisy gave a little shiver, recalling watching it with Fitz in the late hours of the night.

Lincoln had an incredulous look on his face.

"Why? Why would I ever want to do that?"

"Oh wait, that's right. You hate fun and ghosts," she remarked, hoping for rebuttal.

"I do _not_ hate fun. Or ghosts. Just that horror movies are really _really_ not my thing."

Daisy smirked.

"Trust me, I know. You were practically _on top_ of me, Lincoln." His face turned bright red.

"If you know I don't like horror movies, why are you making me watch them all the time?"

"Exposure therapy, I guess."

Lincoln huffed and tossed the pillow at her, getting up.

"I'm going to get a pop. How about _you_ –" Lincoln crooked a finger at her, narrowing his eyes. "– put on a movie that I can actually get through pissing myself from fear?"

Daisy raised her arms in defense.

"Hey, you agreed to it." Lincoln rolled his eyes. Daisy grinned once he had left the room and began flipping through Netflix again.

"You want one too?" Lincoln called from the kitchen.

"Yeah, grab me a root beer. And how do you feel about a chick flick?"

"Anything's better than a horror movie."

"No, wait! The Breakfast Club." Daisy selected it with the remote. The music started up. Lincoln yelped from the kitchen.

"Are you starting it without me? Don't you dare, I _love_ that movie," he said frantically, leaping over the couch with two sodas and a bag of microwave popcorn. She grabbed her root beer and leaned back against the couch as the movie began to start. She glanced over at Lincoln, who was staring at the screen, entranced. He tore his attention away from the screen to look back at her.

"What are you looking at?"

"Oh, nothing," she quipped before turning back to the television and this time, actually paying attention to the movie. After a minute or so, she had noticed he was looking at her as she had looked at him before. That look had a bit of feeling attached, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"Lincoln."

"Yeah?" he replied, coming to his senses and jerking his face away from hers, back to the TV screen. Daisy smiled to herself.

"Nothing."

Suddenly, the door opened, hitting the wall opposite. In burst Hunter with enthusiasm unmatched by anyone in Daisy's apartment.

 _And possibly planet earth_ , she thought.

"What's up? You look like you've just met the queen and she told you she liked your shoes." Lincoln said, turning towards Hunter.

"Tickets!" Hunter managed to get out, gesturing wildly with several pieces of paper in his hand.

"To what?"

"Fright Night!" Daisy's eyes lit up.

"Seriously?" she asked in excitement. "I thought they didn't go on sale until this weekend!"

"They didn't, but Bobbi's doing some volunteer work or something and she got tickets for us early!"

Daisy squealed in excitement (which might have frightened Lincoln a bit, she didn't squeal very often) and snatched one of the pieces of paper Hunter was holding out.

Lincoln had stayed quiet since Hunter had mentioned "Fright Night," eating his popcorn and watching the movie that was still playing. Daisy had finished reading the details and glanced over at Lincoln. She slid along the couch until she was touching his shoulder.

"Please?"

"No."

"Lincoln, _please?_ "

"Still no."

"C'mon, it'll be fun and I'll even hold your hand when the ghosts come out, because I know you hate ghosts, just please please please please pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaase?" Lincoln sighed and put his popcorn down, looking her straight in the eyes.

"I've never gone for all the years I've been around for Halloween. If I can't even get through a movie you consider to be 'not that scary because there are no ghosts', how do you think I'm gonna handle a haunted house designed for insane thrill-seekers like yourself?"

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer, and then added "Also, I don't hate ghosts."

Daisy bit her lip.

"Well?"

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking." She rolled her eyes in frustration. "Lincoln, please? How about you go because I'm your best friend and you want to do something fun with me, your _best friend_ and that particular _best friend_ really wants you there and also –" Daisy pulled a sinister kind of grin onto her face, "– _also_ , that best friend won't get you a Christmas present if you don't go."

Lincoln put a hand to his forehead.

"Do you really, honestly, want me to go?"

" _Yes_."

"Okay, fine, but if I go and I don't scream the whole time you owe me _two_ Christmas presents."

"Deal." Daisy extended her hand and Lincoln shook it.


	2. Chapter 2

"This isn't worth two Christmas presents," Lincoln muttered, hunched over with his hands in his pockets.

"Oh, hush," Daisy said, standing up on her tiptoes to see how long the line was behind them. It was inching forwards and they were almost at the front, but it was cold outside and they'd already been there an hour.

"Why can't we just go home?" Lincoln whined, hopping from foot to foot to (presumably) stay warm.

"Because Hunter got us free tickets and you said you would come and we're already here."

"I'd rather watch Jeepers Creepers again."

"Would you? _Really_?"

"No."

"Exactly, so we're staying."

Lincoln grumbled and buried his chin in his scarf. Daisy glanced over and couldn't help noticing how cute that jacket looked on him. Then she shook her head and chided herself.

 _Not like that,_ she tried to burn into her mind, _You don't see him like that. He is your friend, Daisy. Jesus._

She looked back up at him and tried to make a list of the things that annoyed her.

 _A) He doesn't chew with his mouth closed._

 _B) He owns a lot of yellow clothes for some reason._

 _C) He once borrowed forty bucks and you've never gotten it back – no, wait. He paid that back last week. Shit. Okay, okay, keep going._

 _D) Umm..._

Thankfully, she was saved from having to continue by them reaching the front. The man at the door was a surly, bearded guy with a short ponytail behind his neck and a shirt that said "BITE ME." on the front in thick, black letters. He grabbed their tickets out of Daisy's hand and scanned them with a little device in his mittened hand. He passed them back to her with a grunt, them waved them on through the door as he reached out for the next person's ticket.

Daisy grabbed Lincoln's arm in excitement.

"Ready?"

"Daisy, I will most likely _not_ be ready until about a decade from now."

"Well, I ain't willing to wait that long, so, sorry. We're doing this now."

Lincoln took a deep breath and squared up his shoulders.

"Okay."

The first room they entered wasn't _that_ scary, in Daisy's opinion. It was just dark, and there were a couple floating orbs around. She glanced at Lincoln. He was doing okay so far. That was what she'd expected, really. If anything got him, it would be the jumpscares.

Sure enough, a glow in the dark skeleton fell down from the roof a minute later. Its hands were in manacles, and somewhere a track went off of a man screaming.

Lincoln slipped but caught himself after a few steps. He coughed loudly, standing up and shaking his head, almost as if he was trying to shake that sound right back out of his skull.

"You okay there?"

He nodded, shook his head again, and began very slowly to walk towards the next doorway. They entered a long hallway, made of brick (Daisy thought they looked like plastic, though) with various bloodstains along the wall. At one point, there was a man shackled to the wall, with blood all around him, his head tilted down and to the right.

Lincoln reached out and grabbed Daisy's hand, swallowing hard. She tried her best to shake off the heat that rose to her face, and tried to give Lincoln the support he needed while not making it seem like the whole hand-holding affected her in any way. It was more difficult than what you might think.

Then, right as they passed the man shackled to the wall, he roused, scaring the living daylights out of Lincoln and perhaps (though she'd rather not admit it) startling Daisy a tad, too. He coughed a couple times, then spat out a glob of blood right onto the floor in front of them. Then he rolled his eyes back up into his head and seemed to pass out.

"Pffft," said Daisy, trying as best she could to bring a little lightheartedness into the situation. It didn't seem to effect anything. Lincoln sniffed hard, leaned over to flick a speck of blood off his shoe, then stood up and grabbed Daisy's hand again, holding it even harder than before.

"How about we move through the rest of this as quickly as possible, hmm?"

She nodded.

They made their way to the end of the hallway veeeeery slowly, Lincoln's hand tightening even more with each step, if that was possible. By the end of it, Daisy's hand was purple.

This was how they progressed through the next rooms, Daisy walking in front as slowly as she could make herself, while towing Lincoln behind her. He was getting a little better with the jump scares, anticipating them before they came, though they still seemed to scare the shit out of him sometimes. He'd trip, his eyes would bug out, sometimes he'd even make an odd little sound with his throat that sounded a bit like a whimper, but he never screamed.

She was going to lose the bet, she could feel it.

Although, she didn't mind much. Holding Lincoln's hand for room after room wasn't anything to complain about, plus she was a bit worried about the state of his mental health at this point. He seemed a bit off, with a very pale face and lots of swallowing, even walking in the wrong direction sometimes after a scare. _I wonder if this is still worth it for him. Probably not,_ she mused.

"We on the last room yet?" Lincoln managed to get out, barely tilting his face towards Daisy for fear, she assumed, that he'd be caught off guard.

"No, I think we've got one more yet."  
"Okay, sure. It's okay. I got this," he mumbled, straining his eyes towards the doorway to try and see beyond it.

They entered the last room, wary and moving (you guessed it!) as slowly as possible.

It was empty.

Lincoln let out a huge sigh.

"Glad that's over – anyways, you owe me two Christmas presents now."

Daisy raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, _really_?"

Lincoln raised his in turn. Daisy also, at that moment, realized they were still holding hands and quickly let go and stepped away.

"You're not seriously trying to skip out on this one, are you?" He asked incredulously.

"You said I owed you two if you didn't scream. You screamed, like – like at least 5 times. I don't have to get you _any_ Christmas present."

"Hang on, _you_ said you wouldn't get me a Christmas present if I didn't _come._ Well, guess what?" Lincoln stepped back and threw out his arms. "Here I am, sister."

Daisy snorted.

" _Sister?_ "

Lincoln's cheeks turned a tad red, but he was grinning widely.

"I dunno, it seemed like the right word to use at –"

Lincoln was cut off as a figure all dressed in black jumped away from the black curtain that surrounded the room. Lincoln let out a shout, and slipped back, falling onto his butt and crawling backwards as fast as he could. The person in black let out a (Lincoln recounted it as _satanic_ later, telling the story to friends) psychotic laugh, and did a weird run-crawl movement back towards the wall, going through the curtain and disappearing from sight.

Daisy went over to Lincoln, kneeling on the floor.  
"Not empty, then," she said, trying again to bring some lightheartedness to the situation.

Lincoln was looking up at the ceiling and breathing hard. Daisy furrowed her eyebrows.

"Lincoln, are you okay?

He didn't react to her words.

"Lincoln?" She hit him in the shoulder. He didn't move, but squeezed his eyes shut. Daisy moved to face him and put her face right in front of his. "Dude, c'mon."

He still made no movement.

She moved her face even closer, barely inches from his.

" _Lincoln._ " He was still breathing heavily with his eyes closed, sucking in air at an insane rate, but still not ever seeming to get enough.

Daisy suddenly realized how close she was to him. If she wanted to, she could probably lean forwards and maybe –

Without thinking, she closed the little distance between them and kissed him.

She felt his body tense up. He completely froze, not responding, but not pulling away, either.

Daisy brought a hand up to his neck, not really sure of what she was doing but not feeling like stopping, either. Lincoln still made no move to do anything.

Then she pulled away, realizing fully what she was doing, and kind of flung herself across the room from him. She was leaning back on her hands, breathing almost as heavily as Lincoln had been, and cursing at herself very heavily in her head. Her eyes were closed. She cracked them open reluctantly, peeking to see Lincoln.

He was still in the same position, but he wasn't freaking out anymore. He was looking at her, but she didn't feel like he was taking in everything at the same rate she was. His face was pulled into an expression of confusion. Not repulsion (thank god), definitely not excitement or anything that showed he'd enjoyed what had just happened, but just thorough and complete confusion.

"Goddamn it," Daisy sighed, sitting up and running a hand through her hair.

Lincoln came to life a bit, turning towards her face and blinking his eyes.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit – okay, I'm gonna go. I think I need to go right now, so I'm gonna go." She stood up and dusted off her pants, then walked as quickly as she could towards the doorway, stumbling as she did, but eventually making it to the door without stopping to catch Lincoln's eye.

"I'll, um, see you – " Daisy stopped, because when would she see him, really? _Probably never again, now that I've gone and screwed everything up. This is just peachy,_ she thought. "– I'll see you later. Bye," she finished, walking out.

As she made her way back to the bus stop, she continued to curse at herself, over and over, using words _she_ didn't even know she knew.

 _Bad idea,_ she thought angrily, _worst idea ever. Kissing him? I don't think you can make that out to be a gesture or friendship this time, Daisy. Worst idea ever._

And yet somehow, through all the cursing and scolding and regret, she couldn't stop replaying the kiss in her mind.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been two weeks since Fright Night, and Daisy hadn't seen Lincoln.

Although it wasn't really like she'd tried to.

She'd kept her phone off, she'd missed Fitz's house party (quite a big sacrifice on her part, considering the fact the she knew Simmons would be baking), and every time someone had come knocking on her door, she'd pretended like she was out.

That didn't stop her from wanting to talk to him, though. She wanted to with pretty much every fiber of her being, but she was terrified as hell.

Daisy was sitting on her couch, scrolling through Netflix on her laptop. She went back up to the top in frustration, not finding anything good, when she saw the "Continue Watching For Daisy" section.

The Breakfast Club was the first in that category, frozen in the pot-smoking scene, right where they'd paused it. Daisy shut her eyes tight, and tried to not think about Lincoln.

Every time his face came up in Daisy's mind, thousands of thoughts and feelings and memories came hurtling up to the surface, and she pushed them right back down just as fast. It was, she thought, for fear that those thoughts just might bring back the harsh, cold reality that she had formed in her head after Fright Night.

Lincoln didn't love her. _At least, not in the way I love him,_ she thought, sighing and shutting her laptop. He hadn't tried to make contact, to talk about anything. He was probably out with their friends all the while, going to bars and trying to replace their friendship because he, as well as she did, knew that said friendship couldn't be built back up again. It was over. _They're all showing up at my door to tell me to try and get over it,_ she thought. Daisy didn't know how.

She rubbed her eyes and put her head back against the couch. She felt a lump rising in her throat, and shut her eyes tight, trying in vain to prevent the tears from leaking out. It was to no avail.

Suddenly, she heard a loud knock on the door. Daisy took in a great shuddering breath, then wiped the tears off her cheeks and lay still.

"Daisy, I know you're in here. Just please let me in, and stop being such a –" Daisy got up, opened the door and raised an eyebrow.

"Such a what?" She asked, a smirk on her face.

Jemma stopped midsentence, her mouth hanging open. Then she shut her mouth and gave Daisy an angry glare.

"Such a recluse! Honestly, you're missing too much things – you missed my new apple tart recipe at our party –"

"Biggest mistake of my life." Daisy mumbled, pulling Jemma in by her coat and shutting the door behind her.

"You two just need to get it together. I don't know why it took you this long to actually approach _that_ subject, but both of you hiding away like this won't –"

"Hold up," Daisy interrupted Jemma's rambling, frowning, " _BOTH_ of us?"

"Well, yeah." Simmons looked like she was waiting for Daisy to understand a clever joke she'd just made. "You and Lincoln."

Daisy sat down hard on the couch, staring at the floor and trying to make sense of what she'd just heard.

"Lincoln – he – he's hiding out like me?"

"Of course." Jemma seemed very confused. "Lincoln's acting exactly like you, actually. He won't answer the door either or anything – well – hopefully not for much longer, Fitz is talking to him while I'm here with you. Let's hope he makes a tad more headway then I have so far."

Daisy was still trying to process this new information.

"I assumed he wasn't talking to me because of – well –"

"Daisy," Jemma butted in, looking exasperated, "Lincoln's not talking to _anyone_. Sorry to tell you, but it's not exclusive."

"I thought he'd be out and about and all that – with you guys – and it was just me he was ignoring."

Her friend let out a huge sigh.

"Is this not clear to you yet? He's hiding out, same as you are, and Daisy, for Pete's sake, it's because –" She paused and kneeled down in front of Daisy, forcing her to look right at Jemma's face.

"Goddamnit, Daisy, because _he feels the same way as you._ " Jemma said every word as if they were throwing knives, each word piercing that harsh conclusion Daisy had made earlier. It didn't hurt, though. It was like pulling back the curtains, sunlight bursting in.

Daisy stood up, knocking her laptop off the couch and causing the now-standing Jemma to take a step back.

"I gotta go."

Jemma frowned.

"Go where?"

"Where do you think? To talk to Lincoln."

"But – well Fitz is there now, we should wait to see if he's getting through – Lincoln can sometimes take a bit longer than you to realize these types of things, as you can maybe tell."

"No, no. I gotta talk to him _now_ , Jemma."

Her friend shrugged.

"Good luck." Daisy grinned, and grabbed her jacket off her counter for the first time in a while, heading towards the door when suddenly, there was a knock.

It was quiet, almost so quiet she didn't hear it, but then there was another one, much louder.

Jemma smiled.

"You gonna answer that?" she asked, with an edge of humour to her voice.

Daisy remained frozen with her jacket in her hand.

Jemma sighed and moved to open the door.

It was Lincoln.

The smirking scientist stepped past him, adding "I'll just go," before glancing back at Daisy and winking. But Daisy didn't catch that. She was too busy staring at Lincoln. He couldn't seem to lift his eyes off her either.

At one point, he opened his mouth slightly, bu then shut it and cleared his throat.

Daisy was still trying to comb through all the things running through her mind while also trying to read Lincoln's mind. His body language wasn't proving anything one way or another, but then again there wasn't really any body language to begin with. Finally Daisy blurted out;

"You didn't move, you didn't do _anything._ I thought –"

"You got up and _left_! I thought you were upset about it, I thought you realized you didn't like me or something –"

"I _kissed_ you, Lincoln! That's not something somebody does when they don't like you! And of course I was upset about it, I thought you got weirded out! It's not like what I did was a casual gesture of friendship, so you probably had a right to be repulsed or freaked out –"

" _Repulsed_?" Lincoln demanded incredulously, "I was confused, but not just because my best friend _kissed me_ without reason or explanation –" Daisy flinched, "– but because I didn't think the feelings I had were returned by you!" Lincoln finished, breathing heavily.

Daisy stopped trying to interject. Her heart was pounding so loud she felt like she could hear it out loud, counting out the seconds of silence between them.

In one quick movement, she strode across the room to stand right in front of him.

"Feelings?"

"Well –" Lincoln looked very uncomfortable, "– yeah." Daisy looked hard at him, trying to make sure they were on the same page.

"Feelings towards – towards me?" Daisy raised her eyebrows and pointed to herself. Lincoln nodded.

"I have – um – I kinda like you a lot," he clarified nervously, shifting slightly away from her and swallowing hard.

There was a long silence.

"Do you think you – I mean, I know you kissed me, but – well it could've been an accident or something –" Daisy gave a little smile.

"Accident? How exactly could that have been an accident?"

"You could've – I dunno – maybe –" Lincoln was stumbling over his words.

Daisy effectively ended that stumbling with her lips.

This time, he didn't tense up. It almost seemed as if he'd been waiting for her to do it.

Daisy brought her hands up to his neck, and he brought his down to her waist. He tasted like the cold air outside, brisk and clear and sharp. Kissing him gave kind of a static feeling, like electricity was shooting all throughout her body.

He leaned forward into her, and she was forced to take a step back into her kitchen counter. His hands left her waist to hold onto the counter, trapping her in between his arms.

She pulled away, looking at him carefully to gauge his reaction. He looked intoxicated, almost sedated, as he slowly dragged his eyes open to look at her. He was still close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. Daisy was reminded of the moment from Fright Night, right before she'd kissed him, although he'd looked a bit more terrified then, given the recent jumpscare.

"Not an accident," she whispered, "on purpose. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think –" she kissed him again, then pulled away just as quickly, "– I think it was with _very_ good reason."

Lincoln nodded in agreement, smiling just a little too wide, then moved in again.


End file.
